Mandatory Paternity Testing Has Arrived

A reader sent me this link pointing to a pdf about two Tennessee Democrats introducing a bill to mandate paternity testing before the putative father’s name is entered on the birth certificate:

Regardless of the relationship between a child’s parents, a genetic test shall be administered as provided in § 24-7-112 to confirm the paternity of the child before a father shall be listed on the birth certificate. In order to provide genetic testing for those who are financially unable to pay for such testing in whole or in part, the department of human services shall be responsible for payment for testing for parties financially unable to pay, in whole or in part for the purpose of providing evidence of paternity. The requirements for financial inability to pay shall be established by the commissioner of human services. The commissioner shall take into consideration the family income, the number of dependents in the family, the probable total cost of testing and the other financial responsibilities of the family.

( ) If the results of the required paternity test have not been received, or if the results have been received and showed the purported father was not the biological father of the child, no name shall be entered as the father on the birth certificate until such name can be established by genetic test. In such cases, the certificate shall be amended to include the name of the child’s father upon receipt of the results of a genetic test establishing paternity.

This is sweet sweet music to all men’s ears and a long overdue blow for justice and the American Way. Unsurprisingly, the rearguard feminists are squealing like stuck pigs:

It’s an adventure to live in a state in which so many of our legislators come from the perspective of assuming that all women are liars and all men are idiots and if the state doesn’t step in to protect said men, we’d just be out fuckity-fuck-fuck-fucking whosoever we could get our vaginas around and ruining their lives.

Their opposition to such a common sensical bill, if it were to pass and become law, is understandable once you realize that feminism is not about gender equality but about gender power. We all want a leg up in the genetic race to procreate, and for women the prerogative to fuck around with an alpha under any and all circumstances and have his kid while duping the beta husband or boyfriend to foot the bill for raising it is one they will not surrender without a fight. The discretion to cuckold goes straight to the core of a woman’s sexuality, so a law created to impede that powerful urge will be resisted — and probably resisted harder when she is ovulating.

Widely utilized DNA-based paternity testing — like the Pill and condom before it — will radically alter the sexual landscape. When a husband is legally permitted to walk away from a marriage and any financial responsibility for a bastard child, habits will change. I predict that women will have slightly fewer affairs than they do now, but that the real change will be their diligent use of contraceptives when they do decide to have affairs. I also predict that marriage rates will fall even farther as women think extra hard about marrying those borderline betas whose seed will monopolize their wombs.

On the flip side, those 20% of alpha males who tempt women to affairs and one night stands will be a lot more careful about rawdogging it.

Many women will say that mandatory paternity testing, like pre-nups, undermines love and marriage because it assumes that women can’t be trusted. In the words of the Great One: Trust but verify. The cold facts of human nature assures that no one is immune to vice or a vessel for virtue — we all are at risk of doing things that violate our principles. In the scheme of vices, adulterous women are a far more serious threat to family stability and social cohesion than are adulterous men. This is a double standard, deal with it. No one said life was fair. A guy can fuck around and leave nothing behind but a stain on the ceiling bedsheet; a girl can fuck around and saddle her husband with a kid that’s not his.

I agree with Jonathan. Sorry to nit pick my blogging hero Roosh, but I thought that Cecil Adams put the cuckoldry estimates for non-sketchy cases (for cases that aren’t plainly sketchy enough to inspire a family trip to the DNA lab) in the range of 2% to 4%.

Whether the rate is 20% or 0.2%, the more troubling question is the lack of remedy for the baby-daddy who finds himself stuck with a child he did not father. This proposed law is an interesting solution but it may do too much. I am not sure how it would work. What happens when the alleged babydaddy refuses to be tested. Or better yet, if babydaddy is not a resident of Tenn or just moves out of state and refuses to submit to forced testing? No baby daddy, no dad on the birth certificate. As Maury Povich has shown it would be easy to imagine the state of Tenn checking the DNA of a line up of men to determine paternity. I am not sure I want the state collecting my DNA on the allegations of a woman who isn’t sure who fathered her child. Will a false charge from the mother be punished, what if she does not actually know, should the state help her determine parentage.

I remember reading that 37% (33%, 39% ???) of pregnancies are fathered by a man that is not the Husband/Boyfriend. It was actually quoted on “House” once.

But, as far as I understand, it is a very misleading figure. That number is for men who wanted a paternity test. That is, they were suspecting something in the first place.

Later on, another set of tests was done for fathers that were confident that they were the biological fathers. 98% of them were correct (granted, 2% is still pretty fucked up for guys that are confident that they are the fathers).

So, in general, it seems that if you suspect that you are not the father, then it is a good idea to get a paternity test. And, if you aer absolutely confident that you are the father, then you are probably right.

I’d figure that undiscovered cookoldry should be fairly low in the US. With the genetic diversity within the white population here, a cheating wife would be unlikely to have an affair with her husband’s look-alike.

Gotta sneak this one by the feminists, which lawmakers are doing poorly. “In the interest of public health and scientific categorizing, DNA tests on both the children and parents are necessary to ensure that the child is not at risk for any pre-disposed genetic conditions. And while we’re at it, if we find out the kid isn’t the dad’s… we’ll let him know.” Make the focus health, and the paternity a side effect.

The nice thing is that the testing will probably become mandatory as genetic sequencing gets cheaper. The question will be if the law gives the father any rights if he’s cuckolded.

#7 PA: I’d figure that undiscovered cookoldry should be fairly low in the US. With the genetic diversity within the white population here, a cheating wife would be unlikely to have an affair with her husband’s look-alike.

Nah. All white people look alike.

Honestly, most babies of the same race look pretty similar. Unless it’s something like a brown-eyed baby being born to two blue-eyed parents (and even that may not be definitive; I suspect the reality is a bit more complicated than the Mendelian heredity I learned in high-school bio) there’s not usually much to distinguish them until the kid is older — and by then it’s too late, according to the law at least. If you’ve been acting as the kid’s father for years, the state considers you the father.

The best thing about it this law is that by making it mandatory, they’ve removed the inherent element of accusation that always goes along with a request for a paternity test (you can see the same phenomenon with prenuptial agreements). With a mandatory test, there’s no more reason to object to it than a mandatory blood test before marriage or a vision test to qualify for a driver’s license.

It seems kind of tacky for those people who actually want to raise a kid together, but the fact is that raising children is such an expensive proposition, that this is necessary to avoid undue burdens being placed on innocent parties.

I’m rather in favor of this. The man, the woman, and the child should all know exactly who contributed the genetic material, for health and psychological reasons. Hospitals sometimes accidentally switch around babies in the maternity ward, so a woman is not immune to the mishap of raising a kid who isn’t her own.

Many women will say that mandatory paternity testing, like pre-nups, undermines love and marriage because it assumes that women can’t be trusted.

A lot of prenups are also to protect the woman from financial pitfalls, such as the husband being the more extravagant one and running up a high bill.

A guy can fuck around and leave nothing behind but a stain on the ceiling bedsheet; a girl can fuck around and saddle her husband with a kid that’s not his.

Not even close. A guy can get an STD from someone outside the relationship, and come back and give it to his wife. Most STDs affect women more than men, and she can become infertile because of his sleeping around.

There was a NYT article about how if women in monogamous societies have more sex outside of marriages, it would actually slow down the spread of AIDS.

…when sexual conservatives increase their activity by moderate amounts, they do the rest of us a lot of good. Harvard professor Michael Kremer estimates that the spread of AIDS in England could plausibly be retarded if everyone with fewer than about 2.25 partners per year were to take additional partners more frequently. That would apply to three-fourths of all British heterosexuals between the ages of 18 and 45.

If multiple partnerships save lives, then monogamy can be deadly. Imagine a country where almost all women are monogamous, while all men demand two female partners per year. Under those circumstances, a few prostitutes end up servicing all the men. Before long, the prostitutes are infected; they pass the disease on to the men; the men bring it home to their monogamous wives. But if each of those monogamous wives were willing to take on one extramarital partner, the market for prostitution would die out, and the virus, unable to spread fast enough to maintain itself, might well die out along with it.

#11 Hope: Many women will say that mandatory paternity testing, like pre-nups, undermines love and marriage because it assumes that women can’t be trusted.

A lot of prenups are also to protect the woman from financial pitfalls, such as the husband being the more extravagant one and running up a high bill.

Here’s the thing with prenups: Everybody who’s married has a prenup; most of them are simply those that are mandated by a given state’s divorce laws, however. If you don’t get a specific prenuptial agreement, you essentially default to whatever terms the state has in place, be that no-fault or what have you.

#12 PA But what about those women’s sprem donors, if they’re identified? I’m asking because I believe you’ve written about having fsked married women before (condoms break).

Sperm donation would be considered a special circumstance, just as it already is. The clinics already know who the sperm donor is, but there are legal sanctions in place preventing women from going after sperm donors for child support. I don’t think this new bill would countermand any of that precedent. But hey, I could be wrong.

If you don’t get a specific prenuptial agreement, you essentially default to whatever terms the state has in place, be that no-fault or what have you.

No-fault could screw over the woman whose husband lost the couple’s joint savings gambling or racked up huge debts purchasing lots of big ticket items. It can also screw over women, so women should not always be hostile to the notion of prenups.

From the Wikipedia entry on no-fault divorce:

Thus, an unfaithful wife who becomes pregnant in an affair may end her marriage, take possession of the home, custody of the children, and collect a portion of her husband’s income for years into the future.

**An abusive husband can file for divorce and force his wife out of the home, close her out of the family finances and close all credit cards and bank accounts at the time when she needs them in order to mount her own legal defense.**

In neither of these examples does the respondent have any meaningful recourse in an effort to seek reconciliation, hold the family together, and maintain or restore previous, jointly stated vows of commitment.

You’re right. My point was simply to show that everyone in a marriage is bound by some contract should the marriage end; it’s up to them to determine if the contract is one they agreed to themselves or one imposed by the state. That’s all.

Why would anyone object to this? I consider myself a feminist and I don’t see why anyone should feel threatened by it. Even if the percentage is small, it’s patently unfair that any guy should get stuck footing the bill for a child he mistakenly believes is his.

Wouldn’t game theory imply that a certain percentage of beta’s are trying to knock-up their girlfriends/one-night-stands?

My prediction, a further divide between secular modern people and those within religious/ethnic communities.
For the former, there will be more affairs with less use of contraceptives if paternity testing was mandatory. Note the mandatory part. As it is mandatory, there would be no stigma to getting the test. She wouldn’t have to feign displeasure at a request, as there would be no request. All pretense of traditional morality can be shucked off; it’s the government making me get the test.
Then if it was an alpha’s kid, great, she’s got alpha genes and a lien on his assets and future earnings. Exhibit A-single: Bridget Moynihan. Exhibit B married: Trump’s second wife. Exhibit C married to a schlub: There’s the rub, but what of it, she’ll still have the genes and a lien. Exhibit/hype D: If it’s the beta boyfriend’s kid, great, congratulations honey! We must really be in love/now your family must give us money to start our new life or else I will just not marry you and bleed you dry/depress you while soaking up bureaucratic largesse!
But of course the gvt. free-ride has to or might end sometime. Maybe not in our lifetimes….
Which brings us to the latter group: certain strong, usually religious or ethnic-based communities/clans/tribes/philes.
Perhaps counter-intuitely, they would resist this type of government intrusion as an affront to human dignity and on the prudential ground that it will cause more hardship than it is worth; their answer is personal repentance, redemption, reformation, and reconciliation, not a purported technical quick fix. Not that these communities haven’t developed means of verifying chastity/faithfulness along the lines we are discussing –e.g. separation of genders, someone always knows where you are; you work with family; women live at home until married, etc. etc. If mandatory DNA testing is forced upon them or accepted –I’m curious to see how the local Bishop responds to the proposed law, then I wonder if they’d get stronger overall at the price of a larger percentage of women having breakdowns and leaving the flock –or getting whacked out of it, and a larger percentage of alpha’s getting purged… If these groups did swallow this, then they’d become even more unified and hardcore.
So the secular population would become even more messed up, disunified, with beta males even more emasculated and women even more “liberated” while certain tight strict religious/ethnic groups would get even more zen-like in their morality, unity, and gender distinctions. Who would win that war?

There’s no need for a law. Every guy out there should have the sense to get a discreet paternity test right after the kid is born. If the kid is yours, great and you know with 100% certainty. If the kid ain’t, you just saved yourself years of time and money. Dump the woman and get some better tail.

To address that point, though, I would think it would simply lead to more discretion on the part of lotharios. Use a condom, of course, but even if you do use one, don’t finish inside her. I don’t see this as a bad thing: more accountability means more responsibility.

No way! The baby daddy episodes of Maury are great, especially when the woman has had five dudes tested and is like “Maury, I KNOW this next dude is the father! I am SURE of it!” and of course, he is not the father. Also great: the ones where brothers/other family members are tested.

Well, I agree that it’s terrible that some men unknowingly get saddled with children that don’t belong to them, and I’m no defenderof adultery.

But I still think that a law like the one proposed could lead to a good deal of chaos. For one, there’s the matter of trying to prove or discover who the father actually is, if tests reveal that the woman’s husband is not. How could this be determined, without considerable invasion of privacy, and perhaps breaking up other marriages when the truth comes out?

Another issue, boys: are you so sure that none of your multiple “relationships” has not resulted in a pregnancy and childbirth somewhere along the line? I can see the state, once it gets hold of this kind of information, using it to force accidental fathers to pay child support for children they never knew they had, rather than accept the burden of supporting the child via welfare payments to the mother.

Finally, as Hope points out, it’s nonsense to say that men’s adultery has no serious impact on women if they don’t find out about it. First, there’s the disease issue, as she mentions; then, there’s also the fact that the woman cheated on could find that her family’s income could suddenly be dramatically lessened if her husband were forced to pay child support to another woman. If she works too, I imagine it’s possible that her own income could be used to determine the size of the support payments.

“But I still think that a law like the one proposed could lead to a good deal of chaos. ”

I knew a feminist would find a reason to hate such a brilliant idea. Totally confirming what the great Roissy said all along!

“For one, there’s the matter of trying to prove or discover who the father actually is, if tests reveal that the woman’s husband is not. How could this be determined, without considerable invasion of privacy, and perhaps breaking up other marriages when the truth comes out? ”

None of this should be more important than the issue of forcing a guy to pay and raise another man’s offspring. Give us all the stupid ramifications of this that you want. The benefits of such a program far outweigh the negatives. If you were a guy, especially a guy who’s cuckolded, you’d be singing a differnet tune.

Yeah, I think EVERY man should be smart enough to have their wife/girlfriend’s kid paternity tested if she claims he is the father. no questions asked. Even if there isn’t a law. A complaining wife or girlfriend is much less bad than 18 years of money and time wasted.

Feminists of course are opposed. Feminists are opposed to any law that holds white women accountable for their actions. They are much more about harming men than “helping” women.

Ok – first – a child is born – this child is innocent and I’m happy to have the child on Earth – (I love everybody)

If the child finds out the mother cheated on the father – then the child loses in alot of ways (social, monetary, love, the ability to trust, etc IMPORTANT STUFF)

Since the mother is a liar – and the orig father is a liar – they should pay some huge price -Perhaps the child and the non-sperm-donor father can still have the option to have the real father and mother beaten by the police. ha ha ha . Perhaps she has to apologise to them formally in a written legal paper or publicly. Perhaps this could become a humiliating publicly aired show. ( I wouldn’t watch it that much myself. )

The kid and the raising father should still get to love each other (they probably do) and not be punished by the other liars involved. The non-liars involved should receive the liars riches. Ie: cuckholded father and orig child.

For the hell of it I may beat the shit out of the liars myself.

*Good post Roissy – it really got the blood pumping

I hate injustice and it’s f -ing everywhere – so while I love everybody – I think a few people need to have their asses kicked.

Once and for all, I’m not a feminist. The feminists wouldn’t have me because I’m anti-abortion/pro-life. I decided that I didn’t want them either.

Just because someone speaks up in favour of women doesn’t mean she’s a feminist, in the popular conception of that word. In any case, it wasn’t really women I was defending here. The ramifications I pointed out apply to people of both sexes – or didn’t you get that part? What’s more, they are not at all far-fetched, but the likely consequence of introducing such a law.

Usually lurking: you say it’s of no consequence to the husband if the father of his wife’s baby can’t be found, as long as he is compensated for supporting her through pregnancy. Yikes – how thick can you get? Who’s going to compensate him, if his wife hasn’t been working? What if they have several legitimate children already? If he forces her out of the house, he’ll still have to pay child support for them, probably costing him more money than supporting the one child who was not his own.

Partial truths in these cases end up with somebody losing in life because of “lost opportunity costs”. Because the lies suppress a really decent persons freedom and life choices .

*Like the rich do with the manipulated U. S. tax code.
Uncover the lies in the tax code and you alias clio will save months of tax dollars a year you pay now that are kicked back to the wealthy. You suffer daily now. They didn’t tell you about this baby.

I worked in a DCSE office for a brief period of time. And I think I’d be in favor of this law, especially if – much like with the DNA of certain criminals – there was a DNA database for comparison purposes. There are a lot of guys fathering children with several different women at a time, and some of these women never hear from, or have a way to track them down, thereafter.

In fact, in some cases, the costs saved by more easily identifying and locating absentee fathers might outweight the cost to the state of paternity tests for those who can’t afford it.

What concerns me, however, is that this constitutes a misapplication of DNA evidence. DNA is much better suited to exclude candidates for paternity, than to conclusively establish paternity – see rina #16. There could still be a number of incorrectly identified “fathers”, thus negating the benefits of the program which would still impose a cost on the public.

Miik, I’m not in favour of suppressing any truth. I don’t want to make DNA testing illegal, for heaven’s sake! I just don’t know whether it’s a good idea to make it compulsory. Doing so could lead to a tremendous invasion of privacy, as the state might then demand that all possible fathers be tested.

Besides, don’t you think there might be ways to manipulate such a system fraudulently? I know that when a friend of mine was going into labour, the hospital staff quietly asked her whether there was any chance that the baby was not her husband’s. They needed to know, you see, because of potential risk to the mother and baby if the baby’s blood were Rh negative, which is impossible if both parents are Rh positive. My friend laughed and said there was no chance – but the point is that doctors and nurses would have been willing to cover for her if the baby were not her husband’s. I can see a large potential market for phony DNA results, for a fee.

I’m against it. Not because it’s not a good idea, but because it’s a random ass law my tax dollars will somehow pay for. And this is coming from an ex-sailor who’s seen every variety of cuckolding and mantrapping in the book.

Usually lurking: you say it’s of no consequence to the husband if the father of his wife’s baby can’t be found, as long as he is compensated for supporting her through pregnancy. Yikes – how thick can you get? Who’s going to compensate him, if his wife hasn’t been working? What if they have several legitimate children already? If he forces her out of the house, he’ll still have to pay child support for them, probably costing him more money than supporting the one child who was not his own.

Thick? Nice.

First off, I was kidding about the reimbursement, mostly because I know that something like that would never happen.

Secondly, about the Cuckolded Father not caring about the Mother and Biological Father: why on earth would he even think about the Father, Mother and Child. All he knows at that moment is that he has been lied to and deceived for, at least, the last 9 months.

He will likely spend the next few weeks at some local bar, avoiding work, “self-medicating” with Glenfiddich.

After the money that he spent on the nursery, hospital bills and everything else that comes with a pregnancy, plus, now, the uncertain job-future and likely, if temporary, alcohol abuse…who knows if he will have any money for anybody.

And he is not going to care one iota about that kid. To him, the progeny of two people who should rot in hell.

Who’s going to compensate him, if his wife hasn’t been working?

Again, I was (mostly) kidding, but, since you asked: Clio, when some married guy (who can barely support his wife and children) knocks up some girl, does anyone ask that question? Does anyone bother to say, “Well, this middle-class guy is in debt as it is, how can you expect him to pay child support? So, you and your child will be awarded nothing even though the paternity test proves that he is the biological father.”

Nobody says, that. They just say, “Pay up”. And, if memory serves, I believe that hypothetical guy can go to jail for failure to pay.

If he forces her out of the house…

Does anybody ever say, “When she forces him out of the house…” when some couple gets divorced? Why is your language so seemingly sympathetic to her?

Can I change that sentence for you to:

When she leaves because she cheated on him, got pregnant by another man, and had him, this idiot, support her during her (expensive) pregnancy…

Yeah, that sounds a little more accurate.

…he’ll still have to pay child support for them, probably costing him more money than supporting the one child who was not his own.

Why would he have to pay Child Support to a child that he did not father? I know that there have been cases, but I am assuming that they are rare.

And you lost me on “costing him more money than supporting the one child who was not his own.”.

“Feminists of course are opposed. Feminists are opposed to any law that holds white women accountable for their actions. They are much more about harming men than “helping” women.”

There is no pleasing some people. You’ve already had at least one feminist here (me) supporting the idea, and one non-feminist (rina) opposing it.

Despite your apparent beliefs, feminism really isn’t about subjugating men. I just don’t want my opportunities limited simply because I drew the ovary card instead of the gonad card, that’s all. There may be a strident contingent who are co-opting “the feminist movement” (oy, as if it’s a monolithic entity!) but they are not representative of all feminists. Come on, you guys know this. Don’t be dismissive douchebags. Or *do*, if you like, but then don’t expect to be taken seriously.

“In any case, it wasn’t really women I was defending here. The ramifications I pointed out apply to people of both sexes – or didn’t you get that part? What’s more, they are not at all far-fetched, but the likely consequence of introducing such a law. ”

Whatever. By arguing that such a law should not be implemented you are, in effect, supporting the woman who is cheating on the guy. You can rationalize it all you want. You say you are defending both sexes and aren’t a feminist yet what benefit does the guy who is stuck raising a kid who isn’t his get from your stance? NONE!

Your position is so wishy washy you cannot even cleanly pick a side.

“Miik, I’m not in favour of suppressing any truth. I don’t want to make DNA testing illegal, for heaven’s sake! I just don’t know whether it’s a good idea to make it compulsory.”

Then, you are de facto in favor of suppressing the truth because that is exactly what would happen if the testing is not complusory. The guy who gets cheated on is screwed once again by your opposition to this measure. Like I said, the negatives of such a bill are far outweighed by the positives, only a feminist would be opposed to such a common sense proposal.

Yes, Usually Lurking, if you read my post carefully you’ll se that I did say that in some cases they could already have had children together. Perhaps more often than not – both men and women are more likely to “stray” after having been married a few years, especially if they have already had a child or two together, because having children can be hard on marriage.

And if we were indeed talking about divorce in general, I would speak of the possibility of a wife forcing her husband out of their house. But we were speaking specifically of female adultery here.

As for the scenario you mentioned, in which a husband is forced to pay child support to a woman who is not his wife, I already mentioned that in an earlier post, in an attempt to prove to Roissy that men’s philandering can indeed have serious consequences for their wives.

I said “thick” because it seems to me that you, though an intelligent man, are not thinking or reading very carefully.

As for “Anonymous 1” in #43, all I can say is “back at ya”. You seem determined to look at things only from the perspective of the cuckolded husband, and not to see the broader social implications. I don’t have any particular wish to protect women who commit adultery from the wrath of their husbands; I do see that this is one law that could have very messy consequences. Just remember: there’s more men who commit adultery than women (statistics vary hugely, but they always seem to include this fact; see this internet snippet, which appears to have collected date from many random sources; http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/infidelitystats.html). Thus it’s likely that more of them have unknown, accidental children walking around, whose existence might be exposed by laws like this.

So – whatever. It’s certainly not going to have any impact on me. I’m not an American; I’m not married; and even if I were, I wouldn’t “cheat”. I just think this is one of those “be careful what you wish for” scenarios.

Perhaps more often than not – both men and women are more likely to “stray” after having been married a few years, especially if they have already had a child or two together, because having children can be hard on marriage.

I know that she would likely be awarded custody for the legitimate kids, but it is bullshit. It should be his choice. And if he decides to keep them, then she should have to pay Child Support. And, this time, I ain’t kidding.

And if we were indeed talking about divorce in general, I would speak of the possibility of a wife forcing her husband out of their house.

Fine. I still think that the language has been too sympathetic. In this case, it was her actions that made her lose a home.

…an intelligent man…

From now on, I will assume that your references of “thick” refer to something else.

“I don’t have any particular wish to protect women who commit adultery from the wrath of their husbands; I do see that this is one law that could have very messy consequences.”

Like I said, whatever… Protecting the cheating women and allowing cuckolded guys to raise kids that aren’t theirs is exactly what you are espousing even if you don’t want to admit it. ‘Broader social implications’ are outweighed by protecting these guys who get cheated on. This is a ‘social implication’ that you seem interestingly too happy to live with. I guess the fate of these guys doesn’t count for you compared to the ‘broader social implications’ of the cheating women. Just admit you are picking and choosing which ‘social implication’ you give a crap about. Back at ya, yourself.

#44 ClioAs for “Anonymous 1″ in #43, all I can say is “back at ya”. You seem determined to look at things only from the perspective of the cuckolded husband, and not to see the broader social implications. I don’t have any particular wish to protect women who commit adultery from the wrath of their husbands; I do see that this is one law that could have very messy consequences.

That’s what laws do. They mandate consequences for actions considered to be against the public interest. If a woman — or man — wants to avoid the messy consequences of a law dealing with adultery, the best way to do so is by avoiding adultery, not by attacking the law.

Just remember: there’s more men who commit adultery than women … Thus it’s likely that more of them have unknown, accidental children walking around, whose existence might be exposed by laws like this.

Correct. And hopefully, this law will cause men as well as women considering adultery to think hard about their actions and either decide against the temptation or, failing that, at least encourage greater use of birth control. I don’t see how a reduction in adultery or in the number of children being raised by men unaware that they’re not the father could possibly be a bad thing.

And neither would calling to account players who have father children irresponsibly, though finding the biological father of a child is somewhat beyond the scope of the law; its intention is to just guarantee that whoever the mother claims the father to be doesn’t get taken for a ride.

Sure, there will be disruptive short-term consequences before people stop to consider its ramifications, but that’s true with any new transformative legislation. The long-term effects are worth any short-term chaos, just as the negatives of such a law (financial cost, primarily) are outweighed by the positives.

clio, most of your comments are fairly intelligent and well thought out, so i’m surprised to see a rare burst of logorrhea like this one. roughly translated, you’re saying this: ‘how awful! a law that will expose cheaters might accidentally expose more cheaters as a side effect!’ i’m afraid i don’t see the downside.

as for the invasion of privacy, you have a point, but it won’t be long until dna sequencing is so cheap that the government will have everyone’s genome (or, at least, a sufficiently indicative portion thereof) right along with their ssn’s and birthdates. i’ll give it 10 years, 15 at the most.

—

messy consequences
au contraire, my dear: unlike those of most laws dealing with the consequences of human actions, the ‘messy consequences’ of this one are truly negligible.

unless the dna testing is mistaken – a rare event indeed, and one that will become rarer and rarer with each passing year – the ‘messy’ consequences affect only those with a history of ‘messy’ behavior; sow, reap, etc.

—

Another issue, boys: are you so sure that none of your multiple “relationships” has not resulted in a pregnancy and childbirth somewhere along the line? I can see the state, once it gets hold of this kind of information, using it to force accidental fathers to pay child support for children they never knew they had, rather than accept the burden of supporting the child via welfare payments to the mother.

thank you for apparently making the default assumption that every male on this site would shirk his responsibility.

just fyi: most men don’t resent paying child support per se as much as they resent the complete lack of logic in the child-support system. if child support payments were based only on the actual needs of the child (rather than on the man’s income), and if mothers were required to submit receipts showing how those payments were used (to ensure that it’s CHILD support, not babymama support), then the payments would create very little resentment in all but the most bitter fathers.

“clio, most of your comments are fairly intelligent and well thought out…”

Thanks, johnny 5. You are too kind.

Once again, I see nothing wrong with fathers who are in serious doubt about the paternity of their children asking for a child’s DNA to be tested. Such men would be prepared for the possibility, and prepared to act on it. Making it mandatory, on the other hand, might well force them (and other people, in a widening pool) to learn something they would rather not know, whose consequences they are not able or willing to accept.

Making it mandatory, on the other hand, might well force them (and other people, in a widening pool) to learn something they would rather not know, whose consequences they are not able or willing to accept.

two objections.

(1) learning things one would rather not know is part and parcel of that nasty little phase of life called adulthood. boo hoo, cry me a river (and then build a bridge and … get over it).

if your widening pool is meant to include the children in question, then you have a point, although that point pales in comparison to the points recommending the policy.

(2) you seem unaware that those in-doubt fathers might NEED the power of law to put paternity tests to any use in the first place. currently, it’s commonplace for family courts to rule, in ‘the best interests of the child’, to continue collecting CS even from putative fathers who are shown NOT to be the real fathers; in states that allow those tests to release the putative father from obligation, the window of time is often ridiculously small. also, most states automatically presume married men to be the father, even if he has a test performed the day after the birth.

finealreadyi’mfantastic:is it just me or do babies resemble sides of ham with eyes?

you keep reminding me why i like you.

hope non-sequitured:Not even close. A guy can get an STD from someone outside the relationship, and come back and give it to his wife.

STD transmission is possible whether the cheater is the man or the woman. the STD objection does nothing to advance any argument you may have in opposition to my main point, which is that the reason female adultery is so much worse than male adultery is because the consequences, all STD vectoring being equal, are far more grave — a husband can fuck a mistress and come home to an intact family whereas a wife can get pregnant fucking the lawncare boy and come home to an irrevocably shattered family if the husband finds out the kid isn’t his.

so please, hope, i say again with all love and generosity of heart and a penis that is vera vera large and full of the moloko plus of human milky kindness — don’t be dense.

“(2) you seem unaware that those in-doubt fathers might NEED the power of law to put paternity tests to any use in the first place. currently, it’s commonplace for family courts to rule, in ‘the best interests of the child’, to continue collecting CS even from putative fathers who are shown NOT to be the real fathers…”

I actually think this is a terrible thing, but it’s a clear case of a holdover from a time before it was possible to identify the father of a child with any certainty. The law was intended to protect wives, children, and the community (which might otherwise be stuck with paying the bills), from the unprovable suspicions of fathers. But it is likely that such laws would not change, or at any rate, not without a wholly separate movement to change them, merely as the result of the introduction of mandatory DNA testing. If what you really want is to ensure that men do not have to support children who are proven not to be their own, then you ought to fight for that right directly.

as for everyone else arguing in circles about the difficulties of the practical application of mandatory paternity testing, try to focus people. the objective of the law isn’t to chase down deadbeat dads; it’s first and foremost to absolve husbands and boyfriends of lifelong financial and emotional responsibility in the unfortunate case of bastard children that issued from the conjunction of some other man’s spermitozoa with his wife’s/gf’s eggs.

the horror that is wasting 18 years of your soul raising another man’s kid is so great… so monstrous… that any small practical matters with a mandatory paternity testing law recede to petty insignificance when compared to the grievous injustice the law is designed to rectify. and lord do i love that word grievous.

whatever pain and suffering the adulterous mother of a bastard child has to endure is not her husband’s concern. you make your bed, you lay in it.

Once again, roissy hits a home run, but let us step back and zero-base the analysis:

It seems to me that it the proposed legislation would be a reasonable solution to a problem that appears to be fairly widespread. On an individual basis, it would help determine the truth. I would think that would be desirable not only for the individual “accused” of being the father, but also for the child in terms of identifying any genetic defects to which it might be subject.

The vociferous objection of radical feminists (with due recognition of previous posts of the “I’m a feminist and I support this” variety) therefore is once again based on the cardinal feminist principles of: 1) the truth is whatever I believe it to be, and 2) life must be all bliss, all the time.

Since the fulfillment of #2 depends in this instance of sticking a rich guy with the tab, even though he might not actually be the father, this legislative initiative must be vigorously fought. Clearly, the level of bliss would be greater in such a case, rather than if the real father (who no doubt is of considerably lower means) were to be held responsible, and therefore anything that interferes with this must be defeated.

clio:If she isn’t careful, or lucky, her pregnancies might well have a powerful impact on the family of the man with whom she has had a sexual relationship.

the impact on his family of a husband’s income being divided between supporting the children of his wife and the child of his mistress pales in comparison to the impact on the family of the wife duping her husband into raising another man’s child and the lie getting discovered, unless you are betting that the tricked husband is beta enough to suck it up and impotently take it up the kiester as his dignity is ripped to shreds.

as for the relative injustices committed to the primary players, female adultery is BY FAR worse than male adultery, for the very simple reason that a wife who loses a portion of her husband’s income to a pregnant mistress still has her genetic offspring, while a husband who loses 18 years of his life and resources to the raising of a bastard child from an interloper male has no genetic offspring (or at least one less genetic offspring than the wife has in the opposite scenario).

If the stupid law didn’t require cuckolded ex-husbands to pay support for their non-children this wouldn’t be as big an issue.

Short of mandatory universal paternity testing, the state could pay for DNA testing at the time of divorce, and bastard children are either supported by the state or the real father (with some penalty for relying on the state).

Sure there will still be some still-married betas with non-children, but this would be a huge improvement and would probably be better accepted by society.

the reason female adultery is so much worse than male adultery is because the consequences, all STD vectoring being equal, are far more grave — a husband can fuck a mistress and come home to an intact family whereas a wife can get pregnant fucking the lawncare boy and come home to an irrevocably shattered family if the husband finds out the kid isn’t his.

I never stated that female adultery wasn’t worse than male adultery because of the cuckold offspring potential. However, you implied that male adultery generally has no consequences in modern society, which is quite untrue. We can take STDs out of the picture if it suits your argument better.

Remember, this is not 1928, but 2008. There are abortions if the woman suspects the baby isn’t her husband’s, and since men have no control over adult female abortions it would be easy for her to procure one privately. It is far more likely that a rich husband’s mistress would try to hook the man in with a child and try to break up the family than that the wife would try to have a child by a pool or lawncare boy who likely has inferior genes than the husband.

Many women are much more insidious and catty than most men realize. Perhaps you know half of it, but you believe that alpha males can manipulate these women enough to protect themselves. Wrong. I was subject to quite a bit of that when I was younger. Men quite often do not understand the lengths to which the other woman will go to break up a family, because she wants the resources for herself or simply to spite the wife.

Personally, I empathize far more strongly with the beta male perspective because I grew up being screwed over by alpha men and women alike. I believe in DNA testing and no child support for women who have cuckolded a man. But I have zero sympathy for the supposed alpha male, like my father (yes, I hate the other woman because of this, too), who sleeps around and then does not actually support his real genetic offspring. His family will not remain solid, I can guarantee you that much.

My real sympathies are with children, who have a right to know who their father is. But there’s something about the idea of mandatory testing, imposed and carried out by governments, that sticks in my craw somewhat. My last word: if someone proposed it here in Canada, I wouldn’t fight it. But I would still worry about the possible consequences.

“But it is likely that such laws would not change, or at any rate, not without a wholly separate movement to change them, merely as the result of the introduction of mandatory DNA testing. If what you really want is to ensure that men do not have to support children who are proven not to be their own, then you ought to fight for that right directly.”

This point is irrelevant to the debate but indicative of the type of logic you are employing on this issue. Whether or not mandatory testing will cause a change to child support laws is irrelevant to whether it should be implemented on its merit alone. BTW, it will be a lot easier to enact mandatory testing than to change the current child support laws anyway- another great reason society needs it.

Like I said, you would be singing a different tune if you were a guy who naively believed your cheating spouse when she told you the bastard kid was yours. As has been repeated over and over on this thread, the benefits of such testing far outweigh the potential negatives.

Anon 1, you are really starting to irritate me. I raised the issue of child-support laws because so many other people posting comments here were fuming about the matter, in conjunction with their comments about mandatory DNA testing. It’s not my logic you ought to be taking issue with, but theirs.

I naturally recoil from the thought of the government and it’s piece of shit idiot “caring professionals” sticking thier noses into family matters.

Again, if state laws do not allow unilateral (done by the father only) paternity tests, I can’t imagine it’s that hard for a suspicious father to go online and find a genetics testing lab overseas and mail them a strand of his own and his child’s hair, and get the results.

Your comments about feminists being about gender power are ridiculous when you look at the rest of this blog. It’s all, “Women only count when they’re young and hot.” “Men can be other things, but a woman can’t.” “A woman who doesn’t cater to me is a bitch.” “A woman who doesn’t raise my status is a worthless pump-and-dump.”

And you think it’s the feminists who are about gender and power? Get real. You’re the only one who wants power over half the population, because you have it stuck in your head that you can’t control your dick and that’s our fault because our boobs have some mysterious power that makes you want to fuck us… That’s so stupid. Grow the hell up. Take responsibility for yourself.

Look at yourself in the mirror (or read the junk you print here) and stop whining about the scary feminists. The day a woman says, “I only want a man who makes me look good and pays my way, and god I hope he never talks, asks me for anything, or expects me to support his kids,” is the day you have shit to complain about. Actually, if you find that woman, go nuts on her. She sucks. But for now, realize that you suck and no woman I know deserves your crap.

Adultery is bad is bad when it comes in both flavours, male or female. I’ve seen the consequences of both and it aint pretty no matter what the sex of the offender. But by concealing vice with fraud one simply amplifies the potential injuries to all parties concerned.

I have a friend who works in a blood bank, according to their figures 8% of kids have unexpectant blood groupings inconsistent with their parents DNA. I gather the figures are pretty much the same across all of the Anglo world. 8% of males are paying for the upbringing of children whom they think are their own.

Now imagine if a girl had an 8% chance of being forced to pay for the upkeep of a child, of whom she was not a genetic parent, by mere virtue of sleeping with one of the genetic partners; would the sisterhood consider this just? No fucking way!

This law would sort a lot of shit out at the very beginning instead of 10-15 years down the track. Bring it on I say.

In social groups where men are fairly confident that their children are their own have around 3% cuckoldry rates. In social groups where the men are not confident that the children they are raising are their own have cuckoldry rates around 30%. In other words, upper middle class people do not screw around much and, when they do, tend to be careful. The lower socio-economic classes (aka the underclass) do not give a s**t at all.

Equating “feminists” with the group “women who cheat and lie about it” doesn’t quite seem logical, btw. Why are feminists in this story? You didn’t quote one Roissy/Usually Lurking. You just speculate about “ooh, HILLARY…” and so on.

the thing to do, if you get saddled with a kid that isn’t yours (and you discover this) is sell the kid and get a new car. you will feel great and the kid gets a fresh chance at happiness with people who truly value him.

Your comments about feminists being about gender power are ridiculous when you look at the rest of this blog.
…
And you think it’s the feminists who are about gender and power? Get real. You’re the only one who wants power over half the population…

Ok I did a little research on this. Getting a quickie home paternity test is a piece of cake. Just rub a q-tip inside the kid’s cheek and one inside your cheek, mail it off and presto you know if the kid is yours or not. Mom never needs to know. If the kid is yours, pull out the cigars and relax.

Paternity testing gets trickier if you want to use it for legal purposes, like proving legally the kid ain’t yours once you know. The law varies from state to state. Some states require the mother’s signature which makes no sense to me.

However, once you know the kid ain’t yours, my advice is to go out and find the best freaking lawyer money can buy before you say anything to the woman. Whatever the lawyer costs is nothing compared to 18+ years of supporting another guy’s kid, not to mention the emotional trauma. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, a good lawyer is worth his/her weight in gold.

“I’m separated from my spouse and have been paying child support for two children for five years. With IDENTIGENE, I was able to do DNA tests on both children. When the results came back, I was devastated. The Paternity Analysis Report read that the probability of paternity was 0% for both children. The court dismissed the child support and freed me of all responsibilities. Thanks again IDENTIGENE” – Pedro Hernandez.

Golly, thanks Identigene! You go Pedro!

Guys, only idiots count on the gub’ment to protect them. Take charge and own the problem. There’s no doubt in my mind I’m getting my kids paternity tested, and fast.

azuzuru – the technicalities for proving paternity via home tests, while simple, don’t address the main problem, which is that the husband gets into a legal cesspool once he signs the birth certificate at the hospital and thereby claims fatherly relations to the kid.

in my view, this is why a mandatory regime that removed the moral and legal burdens from families by placing it on the state would be preferable. the testing is done before the husband signs any forms, giving him the option to walk the fuck out if the kid isn’t his without worrying about his wife dragging him into the courts to force him into indentured servitude to her whoring ass and the bastard child.

I agree wholeheartedly Roissy. Passing a law that mandates post-birth paternity testing before the paternal legal and financial shackles are fastened would solve this problem…..and then monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Unfortunately, fem lobbying power likely is too great for this to happen (and I thought we lived in a patriarchy?). Until the monkeys come we gotta play the cards we’re dealt and take matters into our own hands.

[…] If you insist on ignoring the plain facts of day and all the advice I give here, and act against your self-interest by getting married, you should at least take care to avoid investing in any product that carries […]

[…] part of choosing girls for long term investmest and wife and mother potential down to a science. Mandatory paternity testing will aid them in this, and I predict such testing will seismically shift the playing field in a way […]

[…] the last ounce of your soul for the “prize” of landing a quality woman who will be the perfect wife and mother of your future children. But I look around and see CEOs and captains of industry with frumpy, fat […]

Personally, I think the idea of mandatory paternity testing is not right. To me this is just a way for a man to humilite the woman. It is particularly offensive for those who are in long term marriages and who have been faithful spouses.

Why is that? Because such testing presumes guilt. Such mandatory testing is the same as the husband telling the wife. “I don’t trust you. I think you are a cheating whore.” Bad thing here? Those very same men probably aren’t angels…they are probably cheating on their wives and possibly fathering children with other women…and yet no one is forcing those men to take any sort of DNA test of any sort. No they just go on playing around and not have to answer to anyone…not even if the infect the wife with an STD as some husbands recklessly do!

How about the possibility that the test may have false results claiming that the father is not the father when he really is? I’ve heard of this sort of thing happening.

Ok, so maybe the test does proves the paranoid man is the biological father. Then what? Is he now prepared to face the fact that he just falsely accused the woman he supposedly loves? Will he be able to reconcile that she will never be able to trust him again because NO ONE likes to be false accused? Is he ready to prove to his children he really does love them and is not going to throw them to the wolves becaues he didn’t trust their mother?

Unless there is a very viable reason for this test other than mere sexual jealousy, then I think those tests can do more harm than good in many familes.

Also what is up with these men who want to prevent women from having abortions, but then want to force them to take the DNA test to ‘prove’ he’s the father? It’s all about the man wanting to be in control.

One valuable lesson that will come to any guy who argues about paternity testing with a feminist is that it is always a waste of time. Fortunately, the problem is moot.
Men invented the tests. They are now very cheap, very reliable, and require no cooperation from the mother. So, they will be widely used, more and more, whenever a woman demands child support from a possible “dad.”

“on March 29, 2009 at 9:48 am readerinpacificnorthwest
Why is that? Because such testing presumes guilt. Such mandatory testing is the same as the husband telling the wife. “I don’t trust you. I think you are a cheating whore.” Bad thing here? ”

Yea thats why it’s mandatory no one has to be accused. Plus woman get to make choices based on that. Companies already drug test you when you have an accident at work. Might as well lose a little more freedom. Except this type of thing is a little more important than a company knowing whether or not someone does drugs. This is a test that has lifelong implications.

eh, we’ve already got mandatory HIV/STD testing for pregnant women, and mandatory PKU, and a whole slew of other newborn tests; tacking another test onto the docket would hardly matter to most people.

Make it so you can “opt out,” with notification to the other partner (if a guy’s wife sweating bullets as she presents you with the form to waive DNA testing doesn’t raise some sort of mental red flag, she’s probably right to avoid passing on his idiot genes anyway. 😉 )

That’d pretty much solve PA’s problem of excess state intervention right there; scrupulously anti-state folks with high paternity confidence don’t have to play along, and their rules are probably better anyway.

excuse-monger:eh, we’ve already got mandatory HIV/STD testing for pregnant women, and mandatory PKU, and a whole slew of other newborn tests; tacking another test onto the docket would hardly matter to most people.

doctors are under no obligation to reveal the results of these tests to the putative fathers. mandatory paternity testing would solve that sticky problem.

hint: if you want to know the efficacy of a law designed to benefit men, just watch the reaction of the women. in this case, i’d say MPT hits a bullseye.

she’s probably right to avoid passing on his idiot genes anyway.

more accurately, he’s probably right to avoid paying 18 years of his life raising a bastard.

That’d pretty much solve PA’s problem of excess state intervention right there

thie whims of the state and the policies it pursues pale in significance to the Darwinian directive.

which has more destructive long-term consequences?
-the state to undermine trust in it’s women, or
-a tiny percentage of men to be cuckholded?

Trust is a fundamental nurturing value to society. Everyone wants to be trusted. Presumption of guilt cuts deep. Imagine how you’d feel toward your state if you were presumed guilty, and had to prove your innocence.

You could make the same argument about HIV testing, but the state is plenty happy to assume that pregnant women are too stupid to not contract HIV.

Wrong. The state assumption is that HIV is not clinically diagnosable until its end stages, that HIV is placental transmissable, and that anti-retrovirals are effective to reduce transmission. The state assumes nothing about “guilt” because no one is “guilty” to acquire HIV. All analogies are incomplete.

Which, for a certain subset of them, is unfortunately true.

huh? what are you talking about?

The state is also quite happy to interfere in your children’s education, on the default assumption that it can do a “better” job than you can.

Again, there is no presumed “guilt” and all analogies are incomplete.

It makes its own system the default all the time. The state trusts nobody except itself.

Unless there is a very viable reason for this test other than mere sexual jealousy, then I think those tests can do more harm than good in many familes.

There most certainly is. A HUGE one.

It gives the husband the informed option of divorcing his wife for not only infidelity but conceiving another man’s child, before our feminist horror laws stick him with 18 or in about half the states 21 years (if the kid gets into college) of child support for someone else’s DNA reproduction.

Any feminist opposition to mandatory paternity testing is simply contemptible.

Myself, I can get into the idea of screwing a kid into a knowing cuckold’s wife. That male submissive knows what he’s allowing.

But think of it this way on the terms of abortion. A couple, married or not agrees to have a child then the woman changes her mind and aborts. The man has no say, none. This raises anger in men whether they be an MRA or not. What does the other side do in this case?

Wimp. Crybaby. Sexist.

Now the feminists are getting a taste of unfairness and what do some MRA do?

what about men who lie about having vasectomies and then walk away from the mother and the chiild and do this to women after women after women. i agree with the testing and it should be everywhere. rtoo many fatherless kids who suffer, what about the childs rights?

[…] the most attractive of them. The result has been more cougars, more sluts, and more demand for DNA paternity testing. To prevent this edifice from crumbling under its own weight entirely, massive redistributive […]

Lets say it cost 150k to raise a kid on average. If you have a 10% chance of being cuckolded then a test would have to cost 150k * 0.1 = 15000 dollars before it no longer made sense to have a test done.

Even if the chance is a low as 2% thats 150k * 0.02 or $3000 dollars. These days paternity tests only cost between 150 – 250 dollars, so even if you have 10 kids and test all of them you make out ahead economically and in terms of peace of mind.